Years ago, I wrote an article, My House is a Mess, for a homeschool publication. In it I described how my home was in a constant state of disarray because we didn’t have a neat and tidy way of schooling. Unwritten in the piece was the hope and belief that one day my home would be neat and tidy. I worked at it, but then the Grands started arriving …

Months ago, my five-year-old grandson came to me, “Nana, will you make me a tent?”

“Of course!” We pulled six chairs from the dining room into the sitting room, draped them with a blanket, and threw in two pillows for comfortable sitting. It stayed simply a tent or fort for reading books, or a hiding place from siblings, cousins, Nana, and Papa … for about two weeks. Then it, and the whole room, slowly morphed into The Two Star Restaurant.

Emrys found two starfish decorations–hence the name–and set them on an end table, his reservation station. The couch, which butts up to the seat part of two chairs, makes a convenient place for his office and desk, complete with a Tupperware lid computer and a photo for its screen. The coffee table with its stacks of magazines is the cook top, each stack a different burner, and the tent now houses the prep kitchen where Emrys banishes his two-year-old brother to do the cutting and chopping. The second end table is where I place my order and eat my food, because I’m always the customer and never the chef.

I ring the bell, a sleigh bell on a leather strap, hanging on one of the chairs.

“Welcome to The Two Star Restaurant!” Emrys greets me from his office. “You can sit in your regular place,” he says, pointing to the end table.

I make my way around the tent, which takes up the bulk of the room, and a love seat– which at the moment has yet to be repurposed for The Two Star Restaurant–and settle into my booth. Emrys hands me a slip of paper to write what I’d like to eat. He can read so I have to list real foods in real writing. He takes my slip. Looks it over.

“I’m sorry, but we don’t have butternut squash today. Wouldn’t you really rather have carrots anyway?”

I take my time pondering which pretend food I’d prefer. “I think you’re right,” I tell him. “Carrots would be delicious.”

“Baby Si! Nana wants baked chicken, red beets, and carrots.” He reads down my list perfectly.

“Awwhite,” Silas acknowledges the order, scuttles into the tent, and seconds later emerges with plastic bowls heaping with invisible food, which I devour and savor to their satisfaction.

“What would you like for dessert?”

“Do you have watermelon today?”

“Let me check my computer.” Emrys scoots across the couch, fingers fly on the Tupperware lid, and he scoots back to let me know I’m in luck. He does have watermelon today. Silas brings me my fake fruit, but also a bowl of packing peanuts from the large shipping box in the corner of the room.

“Here are some marshmallows, too,” Emrys tells me. The three of us sit at my table, poking real packing peanuts onto the wooden sticks of miniature flags, and we roast marshmallows over a non-existent fire, each deciding our favored degree of doneness–simply soft, golden brown, or slightly burned and bubbled so the black crust oozes with marshmallow-y goodness.

At the end of the meal, I ring another tiny bell to announce I’m finished. Emrys hands me my bill and receipt, “That will be fifty-three cents and one dollar, please.”

 I pay in pony beads–yellow for one cent, red for twenty-five cents, white for fifty cents, and green for dollars. I always leave a few extra green ones.

 Yelp reviews must be great, or the Michelin Star folks came by again because lately the name changed to the Three Star Restaurant. And unbeknownst to me, it also became a dinner theater when last week my Grands put on a play starring Danny Dimetrodon and his herd of talented dinosaurs. After the show the restaurant closed for the day.

“Bye! Come back in a few minutes when it will be breakfast time, Nana.”

“Okay Peanut. I’ll see you in a few.” I leave The Three Star Restaurant to check emails before the sun rises and it’s time once again to visit my favorite restaurant in the house. Here the threshold between real and make-believe is not all that wide.

It’s my season! Daylight Savings Time ended this past weekend, I celebrated a birthday, and we’ve officially entered the season of giving thanks, so something a bit lighter today. Or maybe not. I sometimes think I know what’s best in a given situation but, my Grands remind me to be open to things others see that I don’t. May you each have a good week and I hope somewhere in there you’ll discover a talking dinosaur or two. See you next Monday!

Here’s the link to the original article, My House is a Mess.